INTERLACE UNDER THE SKY EP MEMENTO MATERIA RELEASE: APRIL 14, 2003 REVIEW: MAY 19, 2003

Swedish electro act Interlace is back with its new release "Under the Sky" and it's not anything to write home about. Their club mix of the title track has a galloping bassline coupled with a pounding drum beat that one can sing the lyrics for "Assimilate" by Skinny Puppy over quite effortlessly. The other remixes are either minimal and strained (Canada's Headscan) or once again, a pointless attempt to integrate drum'n'bass (Sweden's Oliver Beach). As a matter of course, all that Mr Beach does is utilize some very recognizable and annoying d'n'b loops at half-speed and then overlay them with key lines which a two-year old could play with half its fingers lopped off. The remix of "Missing Link" by Akira Yamaoka (who has created music for the "Silent Hill" games) jumps around a bit more than the others but one always knows which way the change ups are headed. Thoroughly unremarkable.
The titles which Interlace themselves submit on this EP stay on the slower, introspective side which gives a person the opportunity to savour (sic) such fine lyrical content as "I am pinioned, her hands move, the walls move, her eyes move". One should not sing or write lyrics in English unless they can pull it off! In any case, this band has given their utmost on this release (you really can hear them pushing themselves) and have wound up birthing yet another "dark electro" version of Skinny Puppy. The atmospherics on here absolutely reek of Dwayne Goettel, he must be turning in his grave.

PETER MARKS